NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) Director Thomas Michael Nevens Sells 3,334 Shares

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,334 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, June 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $127.33, for a total value of $424,518.22. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 11,455 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,458,565.15. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link.

NetApp Stock Up 0.5 %

Shares of NTAP stock opened at $129.03 on Friday. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $114.16 and a 200 day moving average of $100.82. The company has a current ratio of 1.19, a quick ratio of 1.15 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.74. The stock has a market cap of $26.55 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.81, a P/E/G ratio of 5.17 and a beta of 1.25. NetApp, Inc. has a twelve month low of $70.82 and a twelve month high of $130.87.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 30th. The data storage provider reported $1.80 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.48 by $0.32. NetApp had a return on equity of 114.54% and a net margin of 15.73%. The company had revenue of $1.67 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $1.20 earnings per share. NetApp’s quarterly revenue was up 5.5% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.47 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, July 24th. Shareholders of record on Friday, July 5th will be issued a $0.52 dividend. This is a positive change from NetApp’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.61%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, July 5th. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 43.10%.

NetApp announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a share buyback program on Thursday, May 30th that permits the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the data storage provider to purchase up to 4% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are usually a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Institutional Trading of NetApp

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. lifted its position in NetApp by 3.9% during the third quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 287,241 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $21,796,000 after buying an additional 10,901 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its position in NetApp by 49.4% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 362,959 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $27,541,000 after purchasing an additional 119,955 shares during the period. Northern Trust Corp raised its position in NetApp by 2.1% in the third quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 2,299,008 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $174,449,000 after purchasing an additional 47,040 shares during the period. Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. raised its position in NetApp by 38.1% in the third quarter. Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. now owns 9,062 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $688,000 after purchasing an additional 2,500 shares during the period. Finally, Eagle Asset Management Inc. purchased a new stake in NetApp in the third quarter valued at $1,949,000. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts recently weighed in on the company. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on NetApp from $106.00 to $127.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, June 12th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded NetApp from an “underweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and increased their price target for the company from $95.00 to $125.00 in a research note on Friday, May 31st. Barclays increased their price target on NetApp from $100.00 to $116.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, May 31st. Susquehanna increased their price target on NetApp from $138.00 to $155.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a research note on Wednesday, June 12th. Finally, Citigroup increased their price target on NetApp from $110.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 21st. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $117.81.

About NetApp

NetApp, Inc provides cloud-led and data-centric services to manage and share data on-premises, and private and public clouds worldwide. It operates in two segments, Hybrid Cloud and Public Could. The company offers intelligent data management software, such as NetApp ONTAP, NetApp Snapshot, NetApp SnapCenter Backup Management, NetApp SnapMirror Data Replication, NetApp SnapLock Data Compliance, and storage infrastructure solutions, including NetApp All-Flash FAS series, NetApp Fabric Attached Storage, NetApp E/EF series, and NetApp StorageGRID.